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Monday, September 17, 2012

Review: Virals by Kathy Reichs

Viralsby Kathy ReichsSeries: Virals, Book 1Release date: November 2, 2010Published by: RazorbillMy rating: 3 of 5 starsSomething just isn't right off the coast of South Carolina on Loggerhead Island, and Tory Brennan is going to find out what! Solving crimes, and general brilliance, runs deep in Tory's blood as the niece of the famous anthropologist Temperance Brennan, so when a local "pet" wolf-dog, Cooper, disappears Tory and her gang of science junkie pals are determined to figure out what is going on over at the research facility their parents all work at. The problem? When the gang stumbles upon Cooper being cruelly experimented on, they rescue him only to find that they have all become incredibly sick afterwards. Fevers, sweating, stomach sickness, fainting, etc. Did they catch some type of parvo from Coop? That's not possible though, so what is it? Should they get help? Or keep it to themselves since they did trespass and "steal" Cooper? As things begin to spiral out of control and the gang begins to realize that being sick was the least of their worries after being shot at, they need to decide who they should trust and who the enemies are before it's too late!My thoughts: This wasn't what I had hoped it would be sadly. I still enjoyed the read of course, but was very disappointed that it wasn't a straight forward crime mystery like the TV show Bones. Instead it becomes very syfy. I know! I can't believe I'm whining that it was syfy either! I love syfy! Except that's not what I was hoping for. I wanted something different and more of a straight mystery, especially since I've been looking for new YA books to recommend to my English teachers who teach Pop. Lit. and want to update their curriculum from ancient books like I is for Innocent! Oh well. This was certainly an interesting one, including lots of adventure and action! I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, especially Tory and her merry gang of science junkies! The parents on the other hand were ridiculously non-present in this book! Of course that is certainly very true to life for many teenagers, but it really distracted me for some reason. I really loved the group of friends who worked together and were close from beginning to end; this is something I always like in a book! I also appreciated the multiple mysteries that were happening with the experimentation and Cooper, and also the cold-case murder they stumble upon. That really kept things flowing for me. I'm hoping her next one in this series, Seizure, is a bit more gripping and irons out my little issues I had with this one. I'm definitely adding it to my TBR list now.Final thoughts: If you like FOX's Bones and are at all into mysteries or animal experimentation issues, this is the book for you! You will be up past your bedtime trying to figure out who the bad guys really are!